Preface: as has been stated before, since no studio facility was bigenough for our purposes (we now have 20 standing sets and 57 swing sets, some120' wide or more), we took over an industrial facility roughly the size ofLatvia and built three soundproofed soundstages, costume facilities,construction areas, dubbing room, prosthetics wings, you name it. It's sortof a Lucas Ranch operation, everything under one roof.

A number of shows have taken over and converted such facilities to shootseries, but I'm proud to note that this is the *first* such conversion to befinally, officially and formally redefined by the city as a working studio.It's the *first* new studio in town in something like 10 years. There'snothing else like it unless you want to actually go on the lot of a majorstudio. (And it has the advantage of being off the lot, away from people whomight wander into your stage and, oh, start giving you notes. If you're a bitaway, they have to drive over, and the hassle ain't worth it.)

Anyway...my office is at the very end of the script wing. As you walkdown the hall, my office is on your right. Then you hit the door at the endof the wing, go through into an open space, and twenty feet away is the doorto stage C. I picked the office because it was as close as you could get tothe stage without actually being *in* the stage.

So I've been in there for, oh, about a year and half now. Now I noticed,upon putting in my new computer, and putting it a bit closer to the far wall(the one opposite the stage), that the monitor began to flicker. I figured itwas a software problem, or a glitch in the hardware. Nothing worked...until Imoved it further away from the wall.

"Hmmm," says I, "I wonder what could be doing that."

Then I remember that on the other side of my office wall, roughly 24inches from where I'm sitting, is the wall-length set of transformers andelectrical equipment that powers the entire studio (and we use a LOT ofpower...you could fry Godzilla with what comes into our facility).

Now I begin to wonder...waitaminnit...just HOW BIG is the EMF(electromagnetic field) that I've been sitting in, that's been bleedingthrough this wall? So we bring in a guy who measures such things, from areputable company.

The maximum safe amount of EMF is a reading of 0.4. The guy approachedmy desk, my chair...and his jaw dropped.

The EMF level was 200.5.

Which explains why, at the end of the day, for the last year or so, I'vebeen practically dragging by mid-day. I always seemed to get more work doneat home. Now I know why.

And the stupid part is, it's not something you can miss, thetransformers/generators are huge. Just never occured to me.

Since he left ("You've been sitting there HOW LONG?!"), I've had my deskmoved across the room, to the safe (0.4) area. And suddenly I'm back to fullspeed (well, not suddenly, it's taken a few days, but I'm there), barrellingthrough drafts and keeping up the pace right until I leave at 7-8 p.m., whichis what's *normal* for me, and was normal except for the last year and a half.